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The NAACP and a group of prison guards were at the state Capitol today to protest plans to privatize more than two dozen south Florida prisons. The plan is supposed to save money but has been criticized as vague and a give a way to private prison companies who have donated a million dollars to Republicans this election cycle. Brett Pruett is a correctional officer at the maximum security prison in Santa Rosa County and says the pubic should be worried about safety and the lack of verified savings.

“And I told him, you’re not going to have your savings because you’re going to have first year relief payouts,” Pruett said. “Then they’ve come back and said yeah, we’re going to lose money in the first year, but we have to do this, we’ve got to find a way to save 16 million dollars, eliminate 3700 state jobs, so we can hire 300 teachers. The numbers don’t make sense. We haven’t done a good enough job finding out how we’re going to save money.”

The plan was debated by the state Senate this afternoon.